Unfortunately, there is really no solid answer to your question.It's sort of a crapshoot.

This is very true! I just wanted to get some opinions from people on what they prefer and why. Thanks for the great advice. I have a lot to consider and I will be getting a warranty for whatever laptop I end up choosing!

The one PC feature I will pimp, which is actually software, is Microsoft OneNote. My understanding is that OneNote doesn't work on Macs and Macs have nothing similar. In my opinion, it is the single greatest note-taking software around. It's like excel and word had a totally usable baby. It allows you to create separate tabs for each section of your "notebook" (e.g. my notebooks are Law School Semester 1 and 2 and my tabs are the names of my classes), then allows you to create separate tabs within each class tab (so I do a new tab for every class). I can title them as well (say, Diversity Juridiction, 02/04). It has word processing capability and it creates these boxes around everything you type so that you can drag and drop your text all over the screen. PLUS it allows you to highlight the border of the box and copy everything with ease (very handy for outlines). It removes the spatial limitations of word so you can type anywhere on the screen, whenever you want. Oh and you can print to it.

So I guess that is more of a recommendation for One Note, which I LOVE. If you can get it for Mac, sweet. If not, just a head's up on an awesome PC feature.

1. Run exam software.2. Run legal research software and browse the databases.3. Write papers.4. Take notes.5. Organize hand-written notes into typed versions.6. Get email.7. Browse the web, especially the mandatory parts where you pay your bill, or check for changes to the exam schedule, and so on.8. Eschew lawschooldiscussion.org.9. Sell my furniture, clothing, parents, and dog, on EBay to pay for law school.

The one PC feature I will pimp, which is actually software, is Microsoft OneNote. My understanding is that OneNote doesn't work on Macs and Macs have nothing similar. In my opinion, it is the single greatest note-taking software around. It's like excel and word had a totally usable baby. It allows you to create separate tabs for each section of your "notebook" (e.g. my notebooks are Law School Semester 1 and 2 and my tabs are the names of my classes), then allows you to create separate tabs within each class tab (so I do a new tab for every class). I can title them as well (say, Diversity Juridiction, 02/04). It has word processing capability and it creates these boxes around everything you type so that you can drag and drop your text all over the screen. PLUS it allows you to highlight the border of the box and copy everything with ease (very handy for outlines). It removes the spatial limitations of word so you can type anywhere on the screen, whenever you want. Oh and you can print to it.

So I guess that is more of a recommendation for One Note, which I LOVE. If you can get it for Mac, sweet. If not, just a head's up on an awesome PC feature.

That does indeed sound like a great program. I will have to look into that, thanks

The general consensus on this thread is that it is very easy to buy Windows XP/run Bootcamp and run the exam software on a MAC. Has anyone heard of complications with this? Is it simple to do? I am not very computer savvy and can just see my computer not working on exam day...

Also, if your MAC crashes or needs parts replaced, do you have to ship them away for 6 weeks like Dells, or do they do them in their stores?...

Final Q- when building my MAC online I have no idea how much extra stuff I should add on (memory/harddrive/etc). The list the poster wrote above me is about the extent of my computer use, lol. Any computer gurus out there wanna give me some advice?

I have a MacBook Air. I love it. When you are schlepping casebooks all day, it really helps to have a very light computer. The screen is great, I really like the keyboard. I get about 5-6 hours out of the battery.

That said, I can imagine that it's not perfect for a lot of people. I don't do much more than Office applications, itunes and the internet. If you are playing a lot of games or something, you probably would need more. Other issue: no internal cd drive, which hasn't been a big deal for me. It also has only one usb port-again, not an issue for me but I could see how it might be for others. All in all I think it's a great computer, particularly for school and travel.

titcr. For full disclosure purposes, piggy and I have the same laptop and love it. I haven't had any problems, unlike my friend who's brand new Macbook died at the beginning of second semester. Of course they replaced the hard drive for free, but I'd rather not deal with the stress of major computer problems and the inconvenience of not having it while they fix it. What if it had died during finals?